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Chinese Government Admits Collection of Deleted WeChat Messages (techcrunch.com)
The South China Morning Post reported over the weekend that Chinese authorities have the capability of retrieving deleted messages from the WeChat app. The newspaper noted that an anti-corruption commission in Hefei province posted Saturday to social media that it has "retrieved a series of deleted WeChat conversations from a subject" as part of an investigation. TechCrunch reports: The post was deleted Sunday, but not before many had seen it and understood the ramifications. Tencent, which operates the WeChat service used by nearly a billion people (including myself), explained in a statement that "WeChat does not store any chat histories -- they are only stored on users' phones and computers." The technical details of this storage were not disclosed, but it seems clear from the commission's post that they are accessible in some way to interested authorities, as many have suspected for years. The app does, of course, comply with other government requirements, such as censoring certain topics.
I use it to communicate with a Chinese friend since WhatsApp is blocked. I discovered that if I send them a URL to something on my server and then tail the logs, I see two separate requests from two different IPs, one is my friend and the other is some unknown IP in China.
To be fair, that's how most laws work. Look at the U.S. with respect to copyright. The government can't even investigate or prosecute .01% of cases because its so pervasive. By nailing a few unlucky bastards to the wall and making a big show of force they hope that the rest will fall in line.
I'm under the impression that if streaming services and digital access had been further stifled as the content cartel would have liked, we would have changed copyright laws as a result of popular ballot initiative because a majority would be pirating by this point due to onerous restrictions on accessing content.
China has the benefit of most of the population remembering a time when even allegations of misbehavior could get you sent to a reeducation camp of sorts to straighten out that improper attitude. Over time that will fade and so will China's propensity for trying to exert this level of control.